At WPC this year, Microsoft introduced that the ability to manage virtual machines through the Azure Preview portal and also added the capability to deploy multiple virtual machines at once.
Providing this new capability has enabled Microsoft to now make available the ability for Azure subscribers to create entire SharePoint 2013 Server Farms. Included in the multi-virtual machine gallery, customers can now choose to deploy a SharePoint Server Farms consisting of three or nine virtual servers. A deployment of a three-server farm is great for development and testing, while the nine-server farm can be utilized for production scenarios. The nine-server farm template includes the following server roles:
- Active-Directory enabled primary and backup domain controllers
- Three SQL Server AlwaysOn servers
- Four servers for SharePoint consisting of two for web load-balancing and two for load-balanced apps.
To located this new offering, log into the Azure Preview portal and then select "SharePoint Server Farm."
